British School of Motoring puts out call for driving instructors

The British School of Motoring, Britain's largest driving school, plans to
hire 3,000 instructors over the next two years, despite the recession
causing a dearth of candidates.

The British Motoring School is looking for 3,000 new drivers over the next two years

By Nick Collins

2:24PM GMT 10 Nov 2009

Abu-Haris Shafi and Nikolai Kesting declared their intention to expand as they completed a £10m buy-out of the British School of Motoring (BSM) from Arques Industries, the German holding group.

The men, who joined the BSM after Arques purchased it for a symbolic fee just nine months ago, previously had a small shareholding but have now taken control of the whole company.

They intend to rapidly expand the Bristol-based business by hiring 3,000 new driving instructors over a two-year period – if they can find anyone willing to take the job.

Mr Shafi said: “Driving instructors are all self-employed and people have been more nervous about entering into a career as a self-employed person."

He said there had been no shortage of pupils during the recession, but the lack of candidates to become instructors had led him to reduce the cost of BSM's training course for instructors.

The new owners hope BSM, which holds around 10pc of the UK driving school market, said they intend to expand across the country and reopen outlets that were closed under the previous ownership.

Since February the men have negotiated deals with Fiat and Barclays that secured the provision of cars for four years, three months before the company’s existing arrangement with Vauxhall was to expire.

Mr Shafi, formerly Managing Director of Auto Windscreens, and Mr Kesting, previously General Manager with Arques subsidiary Capresa in Spain, only met in February. BSM, which next year celebrates its 100th birthday, was largely independently run until 1997 when it was bought by the RAC. Aviva took control in 2005, until the acquisition by German holding company Arques in February.